Dancing with Pride: Short Film Collection

Dancing with Pride: Short Film Collection

Dancing with Pride takes an inner look at the close relationship between the LGBTQ+ community and dance. The OutMuseum invites you to check out these film works from all over the world, centering dancing as an element through which queer and trans characters express and explore their own identities.
 
The queer community has long embraced dancing and dance culture as a form of self-expression and celebration. Dance clubs and parties have provided a safe and accepting space for LGBTQ+ community members. The dancing gesture can take the form of survival, liberation, and even a way of coming out. Since words are restricted, the bodies throughout these short films speak their own languages. In the spirit of showing themselves to the world in this new language, the characters through these films choose to dance. Despite the oppressive environments they face in daily life, they finally find the freedom to express themselves through movement, along with music.

The works in this series engage with the complexity of community history in close correlation with dance. Through their movements, we invite you to see their agency, identity, and acts of nonconformity. They dance with anger, and joy, with the hope that the obstinate social norms around gender and/or sexual orientations will one day be removed. And these amazing scenes of dance remind us again and again how the whole community is connected all the time, across experiences and identities.

Guest curated by Shu Wang

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Dancing with Pride: Short Film Collection
  • Regret To Inform You

    From multi-hyphenate filmmaker Yusuf Nasir, this winner of the 2022 Outfest Los Angeles Special Programming Award for Emerging Talent follows a day in the life of a male, African American queer entertainer, on the verge of forced retirement and obscurity, who is desperately holding on to the unfu...

  • Dancing On My Own

    Directed by Alexandra Cuerdo, Dancing On My Own is a love letter to the queer Asian experience, inspired by New York's radical dance party Bubble_T. A hybrid documentary/narrative, this short film stars Joy Regullano (Supportive White Parents), Princess Punzalan (Yellow Rose) and features artists...

  • Breathless Puppets

    Breathless Puppets follows two men driven apart by cultural expectations, who reconnect in the pandemic through dance. It combines choreography from Akram Khan and Animation by Naaman Azhari.

  • Haus

    Makai is a young homeless queer boy sleeping on the couch of his friend Trevon. As the two prepare for a night of competition at a local Kiki Ball, Makai is forced to reconnect with his disapproving older brother. Yearning for distraction from his tumultuous familial situation, Makai chooses to r...

  • God's Daughter Dances

    A transgender female dancer, Shin-mi, gets a call from the Military Manpower Administration, to attend for the Military Service Examination. Shin-mi, with everything in readiness, takes her steps to the Military Manpower Administration. 

  • Vita Love

    Drag extraordinaire Vita Love's music video debut with porn star and acrobat Woody Fox in an acrobatic spectacle of lust in chains.

  • Angelina

    Like a lullaby that sings a summer romance to sleep, "Angelina" will drift into your heart and linger for a while after, reminding you so sweetly of a love that slipped away.

  • Shéár Avory: To Be Continued

    Shéár Avory (pronouns - they/them/theirs) is just 17 years old and depends closely on their mother for continued access to their medical transition, though struggling in her recovery from addiction, Shéár's mom is unable to always offer the support they need. An observational piece, the film aims...

  • A Mess in a Dress

    An immersive portrait of an Asian drag queen named Juicy Liu in New York City.

  • Unspoken

    Through letter writing, a community discussion, and a drag performance, six queer and trans Asian Americans grapple with their queerness and consider what family acceptance might look like.